


you're my shot, I kiss it till it's true

by teaspoonofdoom



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: (for gotham), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bittersweet, Blood, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Frenemies, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Ivy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 11:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15772971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspoonofdoom/pseuds/teaspoonofdoom
Summary: All it takes is a sweaty guard that mixes up which corridor he's supposed to be guarding. It's probably the first time he aims his gun at a living breathing target, and yet-~~Ivy finds and helps an injured Selina, despite the unfriendly terms they're on and her own struggles with human empathy





	you're my shot, I kiss it till it's true

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this wasn't written with Gotham's verses of the characters, but on one of the re-reads I realised it could work with them too, but as a future fic, hence the tagging. (also if you're not imagining a grown up Bicondova, then selina is black)
> 
> tittle from Tsar B's [Escalate ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5ur3SD2b8M)

Curiosity killed the cat, they say. And they're wrong. As per usual. What does kill her are they. Man's weapons. Steel bullets. It's so much easier for them to tear through flesh and bone, than it is for sprouts to raise above the ground. But humans have always been way better at destroying. Better at destroying than at creating, nursing, or protecting; and better at destroying than any other being on Earth is. 

All it takes is a sweaty guard that mixes up which corridor he's supposed to be guarding. It's probably the first time he aims his gun at a living breathing target, and yet-

And yet.

Selina's blood stains Gotham's pavement all the way from the jewelry to Robinson Park. The rain washes it all off before the dawn cracks and breaks.

Ivy is at the furthest end of the park, running her palms up and down coarse bark. Sending reassuring thoughts in the way of the trees. The young ones tremble before the wind. The tall ones fear the thunders. 

Selina, ever the aesthete, collapses in the best groomed bush. It's not Ivy's specialty, but she thinks people weighing more while unconscious, and _dead_ , is scientifically proven. Selina is a woman before she's a cat. Her body breaks half a dozen brunches with its fall. Torns bite into her skin and a pink rose turns a deeper shade as it meets the open wound.

She's also a human before anything close to a friend. And her relationship with Ivy is nothing but ups and downs. But Ivy picks her up when the Earth wants to swallow Selina, take her for herself and turn her into soil. Because not all of Ivy's humanity is dead. For now. She's working on it.

She's sure this will end with Selina letting her down. At least, this is what their history points to. Ivy's used to putting her back together, even more so to being shattered by her. Left alone to pick up the pieces. Put them back together.

It's good for her, in the long run. Pain numbs, betrayal and anger are much less complicated to deal with than... other feelings. One of this times it's going to be the last drop and Ivy's heart will rot away. She can't wait. But.

This time, Selina's breath shutters from between paling lips when Ivy takes out the bullet, bare handed. The dirt under her fingernails is the one and same as the mud smudge over Selina's cheekbone. In different circumstances, and if Ivy was feeling dreamy, she'd imagine grabbing, digging in sharp nails into that same cheek while Selina's tears water down the dirt. It would pour down her face and neck, stain her lips and get in her mouth. She wouldn't meet Ivy's eyes, once she starts crying, but Ivy'd drink in the image anyway.

She sighs when she envelops Selina's unmoving form in her arms. "Did you manage to waste away seven lives already?" And usually Selina regains consciousness just to snarl back. Now her head rolls around in the crook of Ivy's elbow and slits of white show from under half open eyelids.

Normally Ivy wouldn't leave the bullet here on the grass, but take it to a rooftop, leave it at the foot of a gargoyle, a hate letter for the Bat, but Selina's breathing keeps slowing down. And comes to a stop as the first raindrops fall from the sky. The heartbeat is ever present, but altered, out of rhythm, achingly slow. Ivy's hair, when water-soaked, in color is the same as human blood. Selina's face, usually earth after rainfall, is now smoky sand. 

Once they reach the green house, Selina is laid on the ground near the plants. Ivy inhales their air and breathes it inside Selina's lungs. Her own first, labored breath comes in sync with a lightning strike. She coughs aggressively, but Ivy imagines her making a Victor Frankenstein remark. _She is alive._ The thunder that follows makes the glasswalls shake and Ivy feels Selina's frantic heartbeat.

Satisfaction brought her back, they say. But that's hardy what Selina must feel at the moment. She rasps out something that would be "Thanks.", but her eyes scream "Fuck you!" when Ivy's needle sinks into her shoulder.

A lifetime ago, Ivy would brother to tell her that what she's doing is for the best. She knows better by now. Never meets Selina's eyes as she cuts the leather and stitches the flesh. Vivid green throwing, no, launching curses her way, such vile and toxicity, it puts Ivy's deadly kiss to shame. She rubs the special cream all the more gentle. And it's a secret shared between fingertips and torn flesh. Selina doesn't have a feel in there, anywhere. 

If Selina believes Ivy's as angry as her, she'd calm down faster, would see it as a victory, as small as one can be, that she's not the only one uncomfortable. It's pretty hard to have the upper hand while paralyzed on the floor. Ivy frowns her brows and makes the muscles in her cheek twitch to better sell the image. She'll give her that. It's not like she could ever make Selina content the typical way.

She hasn't cut the leathersuit more than is necessary. No, more like, she cut the suit less than it was necessary, but it's half a thing less that Selina will complain about. The bandages loop over her clad shoulder and around her covered back and they tint in green where they press to the wound. It's a hue Ivy much prefers to blood, even if that turns brown too, in time.

The wince on Selina's face is enough indication. When she raises her good arm to claw at Ivy, she circles her fingers around the wrist and pins it to the ground. Puts weight and force to it, hopes it hurts. Not that it could compare with the injured counterpart. Selina stirs and buckles against her hold. Tilts her chin up and looks at the ceiling rather than at Ivy. Huffs a laugh that comes out like a whimper.

Ivy's other hand finds hers. And it doesn't go for the elbow or the wrist or any point in between. Couldn't pretend she's doing it to hold Selina down, even if she tried. The thing is, she's not trying, or aiming for whatever, it's a second nature. And if Ivy respects anything, it is nature. 

She presses her bare palm in and wonders how much of the feel of it is even perceptible to Selina. If it's warm at all. Ivy's not concerned about the claws. She trusts Selina enough to get under her, sharp, very _sharp_ , thumb, and if that isn't stupidity, what is. Ivy realizes she could justify it if Selina did try and scratch her, and if that isn't stupid, useless empathy, then- It's only fair, Selina's blood on her skin, hers over metal and leather.

A salty burn blurs her vision, and that's just embarrassing. Raindrops click periodically on only one side of the glass. In Gotham it usually rains like that, with force and on a certain angle. Tears gather in the corners of Selina's eyes as well, but they are, for sure, a purely physical reaction to pain. They don't steam down her cheeks, because Selina's head is still turned up, she holds them for as long as she can, until they spill and run down each side of her face. Take some dirt along the way and disappear in her hair. 

Ivy doesn't remember where she got rid of the goggles, in the park, on the street, or just here, and she expects to be confronted on taking them away just about now. Selina's lips twitch in anticipation, that's how Ivy knows. Is it a tell-tale gesture Selina isn't aware of making, or is she too pleased with the wording in her head to control it, Ivy can only guess.

"Bet I stumbled on top of your favorite plant, and that's why you, ah-" She trails off, her hand waving around, still in Ivy's grip. She lets go. Of both her hands, albeit slower on the second one. And bites her cheek, because Selina _knows_ she's not so fond of roses. Not that she could have been aware of what sort of bush she had chosen for her deathbed at the time. There are broken of torns in her neck though.

"Got it in one." Ivy throws back and just like that the air is much easier to breath. She swears to practice breathing less and experiment more on carbon dioxide intake.

"In that case, sorry." It's as close as she'd get to a "Thank you." after what happened last time.

"They'll recover, if you're concerned about the plant." And Ivy's not talking about the plant, but reassurances are rarely taken by Selina.

"Never in your care." It's soaked in sarcasm, but the bite is not quite painful. Even "'They?' I think you meant 'it'." would've hit closer to home, but it isn't spoken. Selina knows how Ivy views plant life, and Ivy knows what Selina thinks of that, so well she hears her tone vividly in her head. It's too old of a debate to lose words on by now. And what Ivy just did for Selina is far to fresh to talk about. It means so damn much, the day they ever talk about it may as well be their last.

Then Ivy leaves her, with a half-plausible excuse to check if her plants are overwatered, because she knows the night is ending and she knows how it ends.

Selina doesn't break a single window when she disappears and that's enough for Ivy. She mops away her blood from the floor and the other day, when she returns to the park, she can't find the bullet, buried shallow in the mud. 

She tries to forget it, harder than she tries to ignore TVs behind shop's windows, newschanels going on and on, and on about break-ins and stolen necklaces.

Until she comes home to find glass powder and an emerald gleam on her desk. Then she tries to still her heartbeat and shake her head. And fails just as bad.

**Author's Note:**

> I challenged myself with #10 out of [this set of three prompt list](http://sparkingstoryinspiration.tumblr.com/post/155132044557/write-a-story-including-a-set-of-three-things)
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://teaspoonofdread.tumblr.com/)


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